Just the other day I had a long and painful conversation with someone. They keep beating themselves up for not having provided, what they thought was, a better life for their children. They talked about wanting to crawl into a hole and just disappear for a while, I guess somehow thinking things would be better when they reappeared. After listening to them beat them self up, complain and blame others and cry incessantly, I interjected a few words of encouragement.

I briefly mentioned that everything they were experiencing they created, but I knew this was too much for them to digest right then and there. So I told them to honor what they were feeling at that precise moment.

When you’re in the midst of a crisis the last thing you should do is ignore what is going on within you. Whatever you are feeling is real and to deny those feelings is to deny yourself.

Denying what’s going on doesn’t make it go away. To the contrary, it festers and grows eventually showing up as a major life crisis. My advice is to give yourself permission to feel everything to the fullest, all of the sadness, pain, blame and whatever else you’re holding on to. Give yourself permission, but also give yourself a time limit on how long you will exist in this state. Once that time has expired, Move On with your life!

I remember my mom trying to wean my brother from sucking a bottle. Brilliantly she gave him control by allowing him to throw away the bottle once he was done. He watched the garbage truck empty our trash can and drive away with his bottle. Later when he started to cry for his bottle my mom reminded him that the garbage truck carried it away and he would stop crying.

Just like my younger brother, once you’re finished with those feelings put them in the trash can and let the truck carry them away never to be manifested in your life again.